In the first webinar in our 2023 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Webinar Series, Craig Whelton and Patrick Munro discussed what developers in Scotland should be aware of in the newly adopted National Planning Framework 4.  The key takeaways from the session on 21 February 2023 were:

• NPF4’s status in decision making - NPF4 now forms part of the statutory development plan. Where there is incompatibility between NPF4 and the local development plan for an area, the later of the two will prevail. This is a significant change to the planning system in Scotland, which, having traditionally worked on the basis of unitary or regional and local development plans, now has a national development plan at the strategic level with local development plans sitting below this.
• Climate change – The aim of addressing the global climate and nature crises are overarching objectives of NPF4. Decision makers will need to give “significant weight” to the crises when determining all development proposals. Developers will need to give consideration to how developments address both the climate and the nature aspects of this policy and how they demonstrate compliance.
• Renewable Energy – Policy 11 gives in principle support to all forms of renewable, low carbon and zero emissions technologies. These technologies now fall within the definition of “essential infrastructure”, providing important exemptions to restrictions that might otherwise apply. For example, essential infrastructure is permitted in wild land areas, on agricultural land, on peatland habitats and in the greenbelt. Those are areas that previously might have been seen as off-limits due to consent risk.
• Biodiversity enhancement - Policy 3 of NPF4 establishes that developments in Scotland will need to deliver biodiversity enhancement as an integral part of the development. For local developments, this is to be proportionate to the nature and scale of the development, and NatureScot have issued guidance to assist developers in achieving this. Guidance is still to be developed for major developments and EIA development, with transitional guidance from the Chief Planner advising that research has been commissioned to develop a biodiversity metric or tool for use in Scotland.
• Housing – The new approach to identifying sufficient land in LDPs to meet the Local Housing Land Requirement, the emphasis on front loading the process and the new power given to Reporters to reject plans that do not allocate sufficient deliverable land. This approach is very different to what has gone before, which will likely impact on the application Policy 16 of NPF4 in the transitional period before new LDPs are in place. There were also wide ranging views on the pronunciation of MATHLR.

A recording of the webinar will be available on our website shortly, so please look out for that if you missed the live session and let us know if you have any follow up queries.